Green light for a food fight

The reason why many leading food manufacturers and retailers are opposed to the Food Standards Agency's call for a traffic lights system for food labelling is because it will work (Food agency takes on industry over junk labels, December 28). Industry leaders should be ashamed of themselves for resisting the introduction of this simple and quick tool to help people make an informed choice about what they buy. If companies such as Kellogg's are concerned about the effect on the sales of their products, then they should make those products healthier, not try to keep consumers unaware of what they are eating. The Food Standards Agency must not give in to this cynical industry campaign.

Richard Mountford

Tonbridge, Kent

The Food Standards Agency's "traffic lights" scheme for food labelling is over-simplistic, while the complex set of guideline daily amounts (GDAs) proposed by the food industry is, perhaps deliberately, impenetrable.

So how about combining the basic elements of each? You could retain the GDA listings, but simply colour the tags when they reached certain levels, as proposed by the FSA's nutritional experts. Once salt levels reached, say, 5% of the GDA, the tag could be yellow, over 10% red, and so on for the other "bad" components such as unsaturated fats, sugars etc.

This would satisfy those wanting the details, while making it relatively easy for the rest of us to avoid foodstuffs with red as the most prominent part of the label.

David Reed

London

In February the government is to announce the findings of its "people's panel", recommending that the obese do not get priority NHS treatment. Yet the food industry seeks to block the correct labelling of its products, which would make it much easier for people to avoid high-fat and high-sugar foods, ie those contributing most to obesity. How are people to avoid obesity if the major industry food producers and retailers prevent them getting basic knowledge about the food's contents?

The article quotes Alastair Sykes, chief executive of Nestlé UK. "We're driven by consumers and what they want, and much of what we do has been to make our products healthier," he said. Is he claiming consumers previously demanded unhealthy foods? Does it not bother people that supermarkets and food producers market "health foods", a tacit admission that the rest of their output is unhealthy? How has it come to pass that supermarkets and processed food producers dominate the food chain in this country when they peddle unhealthy foods?